


now i know i'm writing my own song

by deuynndrabbles (kyoukaalldey), groovyjinn



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Explicit Language, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Inspired by Music, Music, Trans!Danny Fenton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26805439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoukaalldey/pseuds/deuynndrabbles, https://archiveofourown.org/users/groovyjinn/pseuds/groovyjinn
Summary: No. Dammit, he saw the playlist. She has to act quick. “I...my little cousin Stacy, sh—”Before she could even finish, Tucker bursts into a loud guffaw. Danny looks between his two friends and not even a moment later, he also starts laughing.Feeling her cheeks burn uncomfortably hot, she smashes the skip button on the steering wheel. Except, the next song only made matters worse.(AKA that fic where Danny and Tucker find out about Sam's unexpected music taste.)
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 70





	now i know i'm writing my own song

**Author's Note:**

> dey: hey dya think sam listens to mlp or heavy metal  
> groove: BOTH
> 
> a week later, and we have this. youre very welcome

October 12th brings a sunny day, and with it a day filled with video games for a certain Danny Fenton.

He’s sprawled out on his bed, his phone in his hands and his character on screen trots around, the little slime pet following him around as he completes tasks. (Danny quite likes this game- mainly because of the living in space thing.) He’s gotten 10 wins in a row so far, so he thinks he’s pretty good at this game.

There’s a honk, and Danny darts up, dropping his phone on the space-and-stars themed blanket on his bed and hopping off, peeking his head out the cracked window.

There’s a slick black car sitting in the cobblestone driverway, low to the ground and with a paint job so polished Danny bets he could see his reflection in it. It looks brand new, and very,  _ very  _ expensive. He raises his hand and shields his sight from the glare, watching the tinted driver window roll down. A familiar face pops out, gaze on him.

(Hmm. Well, apparently Sam has a car now.)

“Mom got me a car for my birthday,” Sam calls out to Danny, a proud smirk on her face. “Wanna take a ride?”

“Hell yeah!” Danny shouts back, turning his head to locate his binder. “Just gimme a sec!”

He leans back from the window, sliding his t-shirt off and grabs his binder from off the top of his dresser, pulling it on over and then sliding his shirt back on. He rummages in a drawer and finds a pair of mismatched socks, looping his fingers in his favorite sneakers resting by his door and jogging down the stairs.

As he reaches the bottom he slows down and hops, pulling on the socks and opening the front door with a slam, a slightly exilharated look on his face. He sits down on the front steps, sliding his shoes on and trips over untied shoelaces as Sam opens the driver’s door.

“You dumbass,” Sam rolls her eyes, her face freshly draped in gothic makeup and her favorite outfit adorning her body. She nods her head to the car, resting her gloved hands on her hips. “It’s electric,” she gloats, ignoring the boy at her feet stumbling back up to his feet. She crosses her arms with a grin, tilting her head up slightly. “So it’s eco-friendly.”

“Sweet!” Danny replies, having immediately recovered from the epic fall he just took and examining the car. He’s paying more attention to the car (Is that a Tesla Model S?) than Sam’s bragging.

“You get shotgun,” Sam says, and Danny’s back in the conversation.

“Oh, is Tucker in the back?”

“You and I both know how he  _ has  _ to take his bag everywhere.”

Danny stifles a laugh and reaches out for the door handle on instinct. Though it appears in his inspection of the new car, he missed the fact that, apparently, the door handles sink in the door when locked. So he has no way of getting in.

“Uhh. . .”

Sam chuckles and shoves her hand in her skirt pocket, taking a single step, and the handle pops out.

“Excuse me,” Danny deadpans, “but what the fuck.”

This time, Sam bursts out laughing.

“Seriously though,” Danny says, opening the car door, hopping in and closing it in one solid movement. “What other things can this car do?”

Sam grins, staring at Danny as she presses a button, and says, “Play Spotify.”

Instantly, heavy, intense drums fill the small car. Danny cringes, bolting to cover his ears. It’s still unpleasant and it can’t drain out the bass, but at least it’s bearable.

“What the fuck is this?” Danny manages to say through gritted teeth, almost unable to hear himself as he can’t block out the music.

“You sure are swearing a lot, Danny,” Sam says, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s called Blood in the Ink by The Black Dahlia Murder, by the way,” she adds, giving him The Look. Yeah, the Goth Look.

Danny makes a weird sound, a cross of an exhale and a whine, reaching over and turning down the volume with his elbow. As the drums and guitar fade to a reasonable volume, Danny relaxes slightly, letting his arms fall onto the armrest.

(Sam cringes, deciding to divert the subject to something else to help Danny recover.) “Y’know, Tucker hasn’t budged since he got in the car,” she says slowly and hesitantly, pointing a thumb to said boy who’s frozen in the backseat.

(It’s now that Danny realizes Tucker hasn’t said a thing, and for a tech nerd like Tucker, Danny doesn’t really blame him.)

Danny follows Sam’s gaze, and chokes on air when he sees Tucker’s expression.

“Get back into  _ gear _ , Tuck,” Danny says, his voice still a little shaky. “Otherwise  _ wheel  _ have to carry you out of the car and leave you on the curb if you can’t  _ handle  _ your amazement.”

Sam grins, and gently punches Danny in the arm. “Shuddup, ya bastard,” she says, but there’s no true merit in the words.

Danny’s fine now. He leans over the armrest and whispers something in Sam’s ear, and the girl stretches.

“Good idea, maybe that’ll shut him up,” Sam quips, slamming her fingers back down on the wheel. “Next stop, the Nasty Burger.”

* * *

There’s something vaguely different about pulling up to the Nasty Burger in a car.

Danny usually walks there after school with his friends, grabbing a snack before Tucker and Danny ride the bus home and Sam gets picked up. Coming in on wheels rather than on foot is just- just weird.

Sam steps out of the car, and the engine turns off as she shuts the door.

(Tucker must be squealing at a volume only dogs can hear.)

She peeks in through the window. “Want anything specific?”

“I want the-”

“Mega Meaty Melt and a Sprite,” Sam finishes, and Tucker shuts his mouth.

“Could you grab me a root beer?” Danny asks, pulling a five dollar bill out of the wallet in his jeans pocket.

“Sure,” Sam responds, pushing the dollar bill back, waving her debit card. “This bitch’s got money,” she says, “so save your expenses.”

Danny puts his wallet back, and says, “thanks!”

She waves as she walks away, pulling the swinging door in the front and entering quietly.

“Can you change the song?”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Whadd’ya mean?” Tucker says, indignant.

“You listen to Ember McLain.” Danny deadpans, crossing his arms.

He still leans over, grabbing Sam’s phone from the cup holder next to the armrest. He turns it on and it’s unlocked, a song by Nine Inch Nails appearing on the screen, Spotify open to a playlist called ‘Sam’s Secret Playlist’. (Huh, so this is her own music.)

“Let’s change this shitshow,” Danny says.

“Thanks, dude.” Tucker’s body language is full of relief, headphones on and likely blaring his own techno music.

Danny rolls his eyes, going to scroll up but curses when his thumb accidentally presses the shuffle button at the top. He goes to pause but of course, as the traitor his thumbs are, they skip onto the next song.

He decides to accept it, instead dropping the phone back into the cup holder as a calmer drum beat accentuated by claps resonates from the speakers.

The instrumental swells and the voices join in, and Danny just pauses for a second, remembering Jazz’s days sitting in front of the TV binging kids’ cartoons.

“Is this what I think it is?”

* * *

The instant she walks out of Nasty Burger, she faintly hears a familiar guitar riff in the distance. It isn’t until she was a few feet away when she realizes it’s coming from her car. Seeing her friends’ dumbfounded faces in the windshield, then it finally clicks.

Shit.  _ Shit. _ She couldn’t keep herself from dropping the tray of drinks as dread filled her. She left her Spotify open with them. Her instincts scream at her to run. Far away.

Unfortunately, just as she begins to back away, Danny and Tucker notice her return. She freezes like a deer caught in the headlights.

Shit.

Okay. She has a choice here. She can run away from this, let her parents actually transfer her to that pretentious overseas boarding school, and never see her friends again. Or, she somehow can salvage this. Yeah! She remembers her little cousin Stacy—Stacy could just be borrowing her account! That’s why the stupid Spotify algorithm started playing Rainbow Rocks. Not at all because Sam enjoys listening to it herself. Pfffft.

With that last thought, she rolls her shoulders back and forces on a poker face. Confidently, she strides the rest of the way to her car. She could do this. Opening the door, she casually steps in the car and tosses Tucker his Mega Meaty Melt.

Cringing at the chorus she loved to belt out in private, she exclaims, “Ew, who the heck put on My Lit—this?” Immediately she winces at her almost-slip. She  _ cannot _ let them believe that she even recognizes this song.

“Um, we just hit shuffle and skipped. Sam...do you listen to My Little Pony?” Danny warily asks. 

“No, do I look like I would?”

Danny wordlessly looks over to Tucker in the backseat, who is holding her phone and actually has a shit-eating grin on his face. Playing along, the technogeek responds, “No, you don’t. But can you explain why you have several My Little Pony songs in a playlist called ‘Sam’s Secret Playlist’?”

_ No _ . Dammit, he saw the playlist. She has to act quick. “I...my little cousin Stacy, sh—”

Before she could even finish, Tucker bursts into a loud guffaw. Danny looks between his two friends and not even a moment later, he also starts laughing.

Feeling her cheeks burn uncomfortably hot, she smashes the skip button on the steering wheel. Except, the next song only made matters worse.

Tears threaten to stream down Tucker’s face now, while Danny struggles to gasp out, “We thought...you hated...when we sang this!”

Sam just sinks further down in her seat as the Ghostbusters theme song blasts from her car’s speakers. This is it. Her life is over. All these years she spent cultivating her serious reputation, just gone to waste. Maybe boarding school wouldn’t be that bad. She’d be free from her parents for one.

Probably would be a good idea to get a headstart on packing. Pressing down the brake pedal with her foot, she shifts the gear to drive and pauses the music.

As she drove down the road back towards Fentonworks, her friends’ laughter gradually cease. After getting his last giggle out, Danny takes a deep breath and notices that the car is moving. “Uh, Sam? Where are we going?” 

“Home,” she mutters out.

“Why’d’ya turn off the music?”

This time, Sam doesn’t respond. She feels Danny’s gaze burning into her cheek. But, she just knows that saying anything more will make the damage even worse.

“Sam? Are you upset?”

Tucker leans forward and adds on, “Dude, you know we seriously don’t judge you for this, right?”

“Yeah, you’re still the coolest goth we know,” Danny agrees.

She just grips the steering wheel tighter as the car pulls to a stop at a red light.

Suddenly, Tucker hits play on Sam’s phone. Not even a moment later, Sam pauses the iconic 80s song again. This repeats several times until he realizes she isn’t letting up. Danny couldn’t help but snort when Tucker pulls out a Bluetooth speaker from his backpack and pairs Sam’s phone with it instead. The funky synthbeat fills the car once more, uninterrupted this time.

“If there’s something strange, in your neighbourhood. Who ya gonna call?” Danny and Tucker both turn to Sam, expecting her to chime in. 

She only glares harder at the road in front of her, secretly fighting the urge to sing along.

“If there’s something weird, and it don’t look good. Who ya gonna call? C’mon Sam!”

She bites her lip as she misses her cue again. But, she couldn’t help but murmur out, “I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost,” under her breath. Instantly realizing her slip, she slaps a hand over her mouth. 

Her friends giddily continue the next line. “If you’re seeing things, running through your head. Who can ya call?”

She turns to Danny and notices the complete lack of judgement in his eyes.

“An invisible man, sleepin’ in your bed,” Tucker then made a high-pitched ‘ow’ sound. “Who ya gonna call?”

Sighing deeply, she finally mumbles out, “...Ghostbusters.” She jumps when her friends abruptly let out a loud cheer. 

Head banging to the beat now, they yelled in unison, “I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost!” and Sam had to stifle a giggle seeing how ridiculous they looked.

Hitting accelerate as the light turns green, she passes Danny’s home. The trio continue to sing along to the rest of the song as Sam carried on her detour.

* * *

After Sam reverses into the nearest parking spot at the mall, Danny is about to step out when he realizes, “Wait, dude, where’s my drink?”

**Author's Note:**

> [the spotify playlist!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4xYxQJ8OdEIAGwvHumfij7)
> 
> [deys tumblr](https://deuynndoodles.tumblr.com) [grooves tumblr](https://srsly-messed-up-fruitloop.tumblr.com)
> 
> a couple easter eggs in deys part: the game dannys playing at the beginning is among us, as a nod to it taking up a lot of my time lately. dannys reaction to the music is based on my own overstimulation as an autistic person when loud music comes on suddenly. basically, dannys autistic
> 
> thanks for reading and we hope you enjoyed!


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